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Cordy Mather
Cordwood "Cordy" Mather was a wanderer from Roses who crossed paths with the Black Company in Shadow Games. He and his two close friends Willow Swan and Blade were hired by the ruler of Taglios – the Prahbrindrah Drah – to organize the first armed resistance against the initial invasion attempts of the Shadowmasters. Over the subsequent years of the Shadowmaster wars and afterward, Cordy remained an ally of the Black Company. Mather was described by Murgen as "a nondescript character of average height with ginger hair who stood out only because he was white in a land where nobody but harem girls, kept out of the sun from birth, had fair skin" in Bleak Seasons. Before Shadow Games Cordy was the son of an honest tax assessor who brewed his own beer in the Free City of Roses. He served in the military, and later left the northern continent and traveled thousands of miles south with his friend Willow Swan. On the way, they rescued a man named Blade who had been thrown to the crocodiles by priests. Blade joined them in their travels and they became a close-knit group. The three reached Taglios and settled down to open a brewery. ''Shadow Games'' Taglios had been pacifist for generations, so the Taglian royal family approached Cordy, Swan, and Blade, to organize the protection of the city against the first invasion from the armies of the Shadowmasters. They used tricks that Cordy and Swan had learned from the Black Company's campaign near Roses years ago to trick the Shadowlanders armies into small prepared towns which were burned around them. These would turn out to be the opening skirmishes of the Shadowmaster wars. They destroyed the 5,000 man force sent against them, north of the Main. About a year later, the three accompanied Smoke and the Radisha Drah to welcome the Black Company and attempt to enlist them into service. ''Dreams of Steel'' Cordy watched the Battle of Dejagore from afar, and witnessed the Taglian forces lose. Taglios had become his home, so he began work to continue its defense and the war against the Shadowmasters. Books of Glittering Stone Cordy became a paramour of the Radisha Drah (the sister of Taglios's prince, the Prahbrindrah Drah) who placed him in command of the Royal Guards. He served closely as her adviser at this time and was sent out to investigate the progress of the war as Croaker launches the Battle of Charandaprash and the Siege of Overlook. He was captured by Croaker's forces after the Prahbrindrah betrayed the Company. Croaker brought the Prahbrindrah along as a high-value prisoner during his ill-fated expedition onto the glittering plain. Cordy and Willow Swan, in their roles as Royal Guards, accompanied the Prince. Halfway across the plain inside the fortress with no name, Soulcatcher trapped him, along with the rest of the Captured, in the cave of the ancients. For reasons unknown, the sorcery that bound him failed. He awakened from his stasis in the ice cavern at some point during the 15-year period called the Captivity. Panicking, and unaware of the dangers, he attempted to awaken seven nearby men: Wheezer, Candles, Longinus, a pair of Shadar soldiers, and a pair of Nyueng Bao bodyguards. But as he did so without the requisite sorcerous precautions, those he touched all died. He then attempted to crawl down a small side passage, but was killed by the poisoned pin of a mechanical booby trap placed there by ancient Stranglers. His body was discovered years later by Sleepy's rescue expedition at the end of Water Sleeps. Mather Mather Mather Mather Mather